Music

With the news Wednesday of David Geffen's $100-million gift to Lincoln Center for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall — which will be renamed David Geffen Concert Hall — the first sound I thought I heard was a resounding slap in the face of the Music Center. Isn't the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion even more in need of an acoustical overhaul? Haven't naming rights to the Music Center been up for $100-million grabs for nearly a decade? Isn't this, its 50th anniversary season, the right moment for some Music Center action? And isn't Geffen one of L.A.'s most generous philanthropists? But there is one more question: Did the Music Center even bother...

Related "Music" Articles

With the news Wednesday of David Geffen's $100-million gift to Lincoln Center for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall — which will be renamed David Geffen Concert Hall — the first sound I thought I heard was a resounding slap in the face of the Music...

An attorney representing Marvin Gaye's family told jurors on Thursday that they should award millions of dollars in damages for copyright infringement by the 2013 song "Blurred Lines"‎ of Gaye's 1977 chart-topper "Got to Give it...

Closing arguments are scheduled Thursday in a colorful courtroom drama that pits some big names in the music industry against the family of the late music legend Marvin Gaye.
Here's a breakdown of the trial and the issues behind it as reported by...

Producer Pharrell Williams testified Wednesday that he may have been channeling the "feel" of Marvin Gaye and the late 70s, but he did not specifically discuss or have the late musician in mind when he wrote the hit 2013 song "Blurred...

In 1955, Sylvia Kunin founded the Young Musicians Foundation in Los Angeles that provided support and a showcase for budding classical-music talents — including conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, guitarist Christopher Parkening and soprano Shirley Verrett —...

At the outset of the fourth night of “The Voice” Season 8 blind auditions, the coaches had filled only seven (Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton) or eight (Adam Levine and Pharrell Williams) seats on his or her team of 12. By the end of the show, all...

Alice wants her wonderland.
Lewis Carroll's iconic creation is such a natural for music you might have expected a surfeit of Alice operas in the 150 years since the publication of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Yet none were notable enough...

There was something peculiarly endearing about an audience of pop music geeks cheering the details of Saturday night’s sold-out benefit performance of the Beatles’ "White Album" in its entirety at Glendale’s Alex Theatre.
Where else would you...

Whether Rolex, the official timepiece of Los Angeles Opera, knows it not, it is as much a beneficiary of the work of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais as the opera company itself. The 18th century French playwright wrote the trilogy of plays around...

Many tone varietals run through pop music, some poisonously bitter and abrasive, others as sweet as honeysuckle. The sound the electronic artist Caribou (a.k.a. Dan Snaith) created at the Fonda on Thursday night hit the eardrums like velveteen berries:...

Much will be written in the coming days about Leonard Nimoy the actor and science fiction icon and his place in television history. But as we celebrate this, let us not forget one of Nimoy’s most important contributions: “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins,” his...

A chocolate-chip cookie resting on a plastic foam plate before him, Bob Seger sat in his dressing room at a quarter to 8 on Wednesday night dressed in jeans, sneakers and a faded black Indian Motorcycles T-shirt.
An hour later, the veteran rocker bounded...

Since the music industry began in the early 20th century, musicians and songwriters have complained about paltry royalty payments for their creations.
It's not only the amount of money they complain about. It's waiting for their money, sometimes for...

Nearly four decades may separate Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” but many of its musical elements hew too close for comfort, a musicologist testified Thursday in a federal copyright infringement trial.
Judith...

When California State University, Fullerton, composer Pamela Madsen began a festival devoted to contemporary female composers 14 years ago, she wasn’t exactly a voice in the wilderness.
There were successful female composers. Southern California had a...

Long before Brandy Clark scored 2015 Grammy nominations for best new artist and country album, and before critics started lauding her 2013 debut album “12 Stories” as one of the freshest arrivals in recent years, the singer and songwriter knew she was...

Occasionally, for reasons of fate or coincidence, sounds from the past converge in the present at key moments.
Consider the Staple Singers, whose gospel recordings starting in the early 1960s carried them through the next four decades and included...

Gabriel Kahane hearts L.A.
Although the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter has been heralded as a star of New York's new-music scene, his latest album is a love letter to the City of Angels. Now, "The Ambassador" — 13 songs, each based on a...

"I thought I'd lost it all," Dawn Richard sings on the opening of her wildly imaginative sophomore album, "Blackheart."
After the year she's had, the sentiment is understandable.
Last summer, Richard's grandmother died. Her father,...

Gaming and the symphony come together when Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda” concert series makes a stop in Las Vegas in June.
The “Master Quest” show celebrates the 28-year-old video game franchise wit